


The Why and Wherefore

by acaelousqueadcentrum



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, warpaint smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-18 09:48:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3565199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acaelousqueadcentrum/pseuds/acaelousqueadcentrum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the final battle of the final war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Why and Wherefore

It is the final battle of the final war.

The clans have been united as one, and the last rebellious faction hunted down, rooted out, defeated.

Clarke stands atop a mound of smoldering wood and surveys the beginning of the era of peace. All around her, her people move and gather and attend.

Not her people, not anymore.

Theirs.

She looks, scans the dirty, bloody faces for the one she loves the most. But Lexa is nowhere to be found, and she grimaces as the movement starts fires in her side, along the flesh she knows an enemy sword laid open there. But she will not waver, she will not flag. She will not taint this victory with her own weakness.

Later, her mother finds her.

Abby’s hands are dark with mud and blood, and her eyes are tired. She’s been sewing and setting and rebuilding the broken bodies that can saved. Earlier, Clarke watched as the doctor removed the leg of one of the wounded enemy, crushed underneath the heavy hooves of their cavalry, most likely. Friend or foe, Abby cared not. A life, she’d told Lexa with fierce eyes in the aftermath of one of the first battles, is a life.

Clarke had never felt more like her mother than in that moment, muscles tense and ready to fight as she stood up to the stubborn Grounder Queen. She’d seen herself reflected in the hard angle of her mother’s jaw, the glint of strength in her eyes.

"All who could be saved," declared Lexa after, "would be saved."

Now her mother approaches her with a report of the wounded and dead.

Always too many, Clarke thinks as she fights the urge to clutch at her side, to acknowledge the ache there.

Still, she takes comfort in the fact that if Lexa had been among either, her mother would have sent someone with word.

As the Commander’s second, as the leader of the Sky Clan, she would have been informed immediately.

She’s not worried.

Not yet.

Something must catch her mother’s eye, some labored movement or some grimace, because in an instant, Abby is suddenly right in front of her, gentle hands running over her face, her head, her body until, with a gasp, she finds the torn fabric, wet and sticky with blood.

"Clarke," she says softly, and quietly calls over her apprentice, instructing him to gather supplies discreetly and meet her in the Commander’s tent. Abby, it seems, has learned enough of Grounder culture to know that Clarke cannot falter, not even now.

Inside, she settles her daughter onto the bed and begins to pull off the sweaty layers of coarse fabric. She’ll burn them later, Clarke knows, and good riddance. If she never adorns her battle clothes again, she’ll die a happy woman.

Her body is no longer the unmarred perfect flesh that Abby remembers birthing. Years of war have written their violent history upon her daughter’s skin. In times of peace, she’s inked memorials and epitaphs along her hard, tired limbs.

She wets a cloth and begins to wash away the blood that stains Clarke’s face, the water in the bowl turning red and then black as Abby cleans away the death and the darkness from her daughter. She catalogues the injuries—a cut over Clarke’s eyebrow that could use stitches, a bruise forming under the delicate skin of her eye. Scrapes and scratches here and there, Abby addresses them all without a word.

When she reaches the side that Clarke, naked, still clutches, she shudders. It takes a few minutes to clean the wound, to peel away the fabric that has dried into the bare, open flesh. Clarke gasps and fidgets under her touch, and Abby takes a moment to swallow a sob as she sees the long, open gash from her baby’s kidney down into her thigh.

How Clarke fought, how Clarke threw herself into the fray time and time again with this open, weeping wound, Abby will never know. Her daughter is so much stronger than she ever dreamed, hard with the kind of strength that makes mothers drown their children, slit their tender throats, set fire to their beds as they sleep in furious act of desperate maternal love.

The kind of loving act that means “I may not be able to save you from this death, but at least I can save you from what the world would have you become.”

Abby was never strong enough to save her daughter from becoming this.

She sends York out for more bandages and thread, a bottle of strong spirits, and then whispers to Clarke to lift her hips—she needs to get her pants off to sew up the lower half of the wound. Clarke doesn’t even open her eyes.

"Has there been …," she whispers, and Abby doesn’t need to hear the rest to know what her child is asking, whom her daughter is asking after.

"Not yet," she answers, and then shoos York out again, telling him to check on the wounded. She’ll take care of her daughter on her own, leave him to see to the moaning and groaning in the long hospital tents.

"Here," Abby says, holding the bottle of spirits up to Clarke’s lips, "take a sip or two of this—I’ve got to debride your leg and it will hurt."

She takes a swig herself before beginning to clean out the flecks of fabric, of ash, of dirt and who knows what else that have become embedded into the flesh of her daughter’s thigh. Clarke, falling under the alcohol’s sweet, numb spell, barely flinches.

Finally, finally the wound is clean and ready to be dressed, to be closed.

Abby brings over the candles—the tent is dark now but for this corner, the bed of furs upon which her daughter breathes heavily, lazily. For the first time, as the flickering candles dance over Clarke’s strong, muscled thighs, she notices the darkness staining at the junction where they meet.

They startle her, these dark bruises on her daughter’s thighs. More marks of violence upon Clarke’s once-smooth skin. Long hours of riding toward battle, perhaps, or a blow meant for the more delicate, the more tender organs just above.

She dismisses them and begins the painstakingly slow process of stitching her daughter back together, joining flesh to flesh. She thinks of the irony, this flesh she made, this flesh she created and carried and bore. Now she pieces it back together, now she looks over her daughter’s torso and sees the zippering of wounds she’s repaired, scars she’s had a hand in creating.

Finally, hands cramping from the strain of such delicate work, eyes squinting against the orange glow of the candles, the wound is closed. Abby gently ties off the thread and looks up toward the head of the bed, startling at Clarke’s wide, unfocused staring back at her.

"I’m just going to wash off the rest of this blood and dirt" she says quietly, gesturing toward the long, lean legs, and Clarke closes her eyes again.

Here, if nowhere else, Clarke still looks so young. Her face is relaxed and her fingers clumsy as she plays with the corner of a blanket. Here, if nowhere else, Abby thinks back to baby fat and sweet toddler hugs and wet open-mouthed kisses. Here, Abby remembers that Clarke’s first word was “Da,” and her second something that sounded suspiciously like “No.”

Here, Abby pretends that her daughter is still free and innocent and that nightmares never break her from her sleep.

She shakes her head. It’s easier—it’s better, perhaps—not to remember.

York has brought new, clean water, and she picks up another rag, begins washing away the grime from the inside of Clarke’s thighs, her uninjured leg. War is a messy, dirty business, she thinks.

It’s then that she realizes what they are, the black markings.

Not bruises.

Not dirt.

Dark angel’s wings.

Or, she considers, the dark eyes of a queen, not quite dry, just before she rides into war.

It seems her daughter wears warpaint into battle after all.

It seems there’s more to her, to the Commander, to them, than meets the eye.

Once upon a time, perhaps, Abby would have been upset by this, disturbed at who her daughter has chosen to give her heart.

But not now. Not after all this.

Now she’s just amused she didn’t see it sooner.

Now she’s just relieved that war and loss and Earth haven’t stolen all of her daughter’s light, all of her daughter’s love.

Someone throws back the heavy fabric that blocks the door, and Abby reaches for the heavy pair of sharp scissors on the bed as she throws a fur over her sleeping daughter’s naked, vulnerable body.

But there is no threat.

There is just Lexa.

Tall and dark and eyes wild with what Abby now realizes is love. Fear and love.

She puts the scissors down and rises—it will take time to remember how to act in times of peace.

"Commander," she whispers, lifting a finger to her lips, "you have brought peace to the clans—congratulations."

But Lexa looks past her, toward Clarke’s pale face on the bed behind them.

The muscles along Lexa’s jaw clench, and her fingers tremble with the effort of staying still, of holding herself back from Clarke’s side.

"She asked after you," the doctor says quietly, "I am glad to see that you are alive and well."

The Commander’s eyes dart quickly from daughter to mother and back, the unspoken question deafening in its intensity.

"Asleep," Abby says, "a minor wound." She takes a step to the side, "Go to her and see for yourself. I will be back in moments with fresh water to clean your own, Heda."

It’s the first time she’s used the title.

The significance isn’t lost on either of them.

But Lexa does as Abby suggests, and the last sight of them that the doctor has before she makes her way the weak sunlight of dawn, is of Lexa, woman become god, gently kissing her sleeping daughter’s forehead.

It’s an auspicious start for this new era of peace.


	2. The Reason I Survive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before and after, all Lexa can think about is Clarke.

The first rays of the morning sun are just breaking over the mountain ridge at her back when Clarke slips into the Grounder camp and makes her way toward the Commander’s tent.

She enters as quietly as she can, but still, she knows Lexa hears the rustle of heavy canvas and the soft pad of her boots on the packed dirt floor.

“It’s almost morning,” the dark-haired woman says from her throne as she carefully paints her face for war.

The light of candles spread around the room flicker and dance over Lexa’s war-dress, her forbidding figure, and for a moment Clarke just stands there in the entryway, watching.

But then Lexa rises and turns, her face beautiful and terrifying, and Clarke feels her heart flutter in her chest.

“I didn’t think you were going to come,” Lexa says, and there’s just a hint of something vulnerable in her voice, in her eyes.

She won’t come to Clarke, the blonde knows that. Lexa won’t take the six or seven steps between them, won’t close the distance on her own.

She can’t.

But that’s okay.

Because Clarke can.  

Because Clarke does.

“Abby caught me as I was sneaking out of my tent; it took me a while to escape,” she says as she crosses the small room, coming to a stop in front of the taller, darker woman.

And then she smiles. Because even now, even in the last hours before they ride to war, there is this. This woman, with her hard eyes and her stern mouth. This woman who has led men and women to their deaths, who wields war like a promise and justice like a weapon.

This woman.

She’s going to war today. She may die today.

But right now she’s standing before Lexa and all she can do is smile. Because Lexa may be hard and Lexa may be unyielding but Clarke–and maybe only Clarke–knows that she’s also soft and gentle and sweet and loving.

“I came as soon as I could,” Clarke whispers, and brings a gloved hand up to the taller woman’s neck, drawing Lexa down to ghost a kiss over her lips.

~

The battle lasts most of the day, and stretches into the warm summer night.

And then it’s over.

Everything, the battle, the war. The weeks and months and, Earth, the years of losing are finally over.

The final strike takes place under the darkening sky, the stars just beginning to twinkle in the firmament above when Lexa takes the head of her people’s enemy.

In his last moments he was proud, and he was brave.  And Lexa respects him for that, for the way his eyes hold hers until the last possible moment.

And then there’s silence. From her warriors. From her prisoners. The woods and the mountains, even the sky.

Time itself stands still for her, honoring this feat, this victory.

Until it all comes rushing back, and then Lexa can feel the ache of a long day’s battle, the wounds some lucky soul or another has managed to land upon her. She can hear the moaning of the wounded and the protestations of the shackled, can see the dancing flames of torches in the fading twilight sky.

All around her her people kneel, and the chanting–“Heda, Leksa, Heda”–becomes deafening.

In this moment Lexa is a God, worshipped and revered, and all are acolytes to her divinity. Her name is a spell, a charm, a blessing, a prayer, and children ages hence will still whisper it in awe.

She who brought the Earth to heel.

She who tamed the frigid Ice and dammed the mighty River.

She who commands even the Sky.

The Grounders rise as one, beat their fists against their chests as they roar her name one last time, sending it out to the far corners of her empire, an emissary born on victory’s wind.

Lexa raises her fist with them, a tribute to their fallen brothers and sisters.

It was a good day to die, she thinks as her lips form the too familiar prayer.

The words will be said many times over the next days, as the dead are burned and the dying, those too far gone to be saved, are helped into the great darkness.

She, as Commander, as Heda, will preside over them all. Her duty, her responsibility to those who died in her name.

As Heda Leksa, she is honored to give the death prayer over her fallen warriors.

But in the tiniest corner of her heart, the part of her that is only Lexa–no one’s hero, no one’s myth, no one’s god–chants a different kind of prayer, desperate and pleading.

Just not Clarke, a traitorous voice whispers up from the deep, just not Clarke.

~

The tent is silent no more, and outside the canvas walls, the camp has begun to break its fast. The clang of metal and the hiss of fire join the sounds of morning birds as the warriors rise from their beds and pull on their heavy armor.  

Inside, Clarke sits upon the Commander’s throne, head thrust back to knock against the dark wood as her hand, tangled in Lexa’s messy braids, weaves and bobs with the other woman’s movements. Her shirt has been pushed up and over her chest, and her breasts are marked with rings of pink where Lexa’s mouth paused and sucked, nipping at the pale white flesh.  Her nipples stand proud and aching, so hard and tight, and God, they need to be touched again. She needs Lexa’s mouth on her breasts again, needs it like she can’t remember ever needing anything in her life before this morning, this moment.

But Lexa has moved on to other things, other places that bud and swell and demand the dark-haired woman’s attention. So Clarke, clinging to the few remaining shreds of rational thought she has left, takes action. She scratches one last time at the back of Lexa’s head, tugs gently, and then brings her hands up to clutch at her own breasts, to squeeze and knead at them. To pinch and roll her own nipples between her fingers, looking down at the Lexa’s dark head between her legs all the while.

She tries to swallow her moans at the sensations rolling through her body.  The tense, tight pull of pleasure that’s almost a pain as she tugs sharply on her plump, rosy nipples, now impossibly hard. Every touch, every brush against the turgid points echoes deep within her womb, stokes the fire their loving has kindled.

She burns.

And then, then there’s the soft, warm, wet heat of Lexa’s mouth. The delicate tip of her tongue, and how the other woman dances it, a slow and tantalizing waltz, over Clarke’s most secret, most hidden places.  It’s infuriating, how Lexa is teasing her, how the other woman’s mouth hovers over her, no contact but the burn of hot breath over her sensitive lips, the smooth expanse of her slick flesh, the diamond hardness of her clit. And then the slightest drag of a rough tongue, the barest brush of lips, a gentle suckle.

It’s tantalizing, the slow, irregular symphony Lexa writes into her body.

Clarke cants her hips, rolls them up into Lexa’s mouth, seeking more. More contact. More heat. More of the spark and fire that the Grounder kneeling before her kindles and stokes and feeds in the darkness of the small room.

It’s off-balance and uneven and perfect.

It’s time held still, a moment of precious beauty on the edge of terrible reality.

Lexa lets the rough edge of a tooth rake over the throbbing tip of Clarke’s clit and the blonde doesn’t even bother to try to silence this one.

She’ll cling to this moment, poised before the inevitable fall, for as long as she can.

~

The first stars have started to appear in the darkening sky, and still, Lexa searches. She’s circled through most of the camps, taken reports from each Commander but for Clarke, and though she’d deny it there’s a cold pool of fear building at the base of her spine, worry for the fate of the woman who fell like a god from the sky.

But still there’s hope. The plan they’d devised had split the Sky People from those of the Wood, and Clarke had led her small but effective band of warriors to the opposite side of the field, to attack from the rocky shoulder of the valley where Lexa hoped to direct the fighting toward, cut the enemy off from escape by driving their backs into the sheer rock face of the valley’s walls.  Clarke and her people would be positioned above the trapped army, their guns well-suited for the task.

And it had worked.

Not without its casualties, however, and the report from one of the other commanders is that clans attacking from that side had taken heavy casualties.

And from what Lexa can see as she walks through the Sky camp, the report is true, to a point. The biers on this side of the field are piled high with bodies, and the ground soaked with blood. But thankfully, it seems that though Clarke’s contingent has been heavily wounded, it’s only lost  lost a few to the fighting, and no one Lexa knows well enough to mourn.

Still, no one has seen Clarke, not since word of victory made its way to this side of the battlefield.

Not even Bellamy, who acts as the blonde’s second within the clan, and would have spent most of the battle fighting at her side.  The last he saw of the blonde, he tells Lexa, was when her gun jammed and she threw it to the side, picking up a sword and disappearing into the fray of bodies and weapons and blood.

The pool spreads out from the base of her spine, slipping into her bloodstream, heading straight for her heart.

She has survived battles and wars. She’s been tested and she’s been tried. She’s lost and lost and lost and when, once upon a time, she thought she loved, she lost that too.

She’s accepted everything the world has given her, and survived everything it took away.

But she’s not sure she will survive this, she thinks as she makes her way toward the row of dead.

She’s not sure she’ll survive this loss.

~

Clarke hums and squirms under Lexa’s tongue, needing more, always more.

Her lips are swollen from the way she’s biting at them, struggling to hold back the curses she wants to shout, the directions she wants to give and demands she wants to make.

Lexa looks up from where she sits, kneeling before the woman who sits upon her throne, and sees the blonde woman, head thrown back, long, vulnerable neck exposed, mouth open as she struggles to breathe. It’s a beautiful sight, powerful, and Lexa wants to capture the image in her mind, commit it to memory, something to keep her warm if ever this bridge between them burns.

She slows the pace of her tongue again, bringing it to a standstill, hovering with hot, wet breaths just over the blonde’s quivering clit and a quiet whine slips past Clarke’s lips. She  tries to thrust up into Lexa’s mouth, and the brunette smiles when a second whine escapes, louder and more forceful than the first. The sound thrums right through Lexa, and settles in the slick, hot space between her own legs.

Not yet. Not yet.

She’s going to make this last as long as she can, she’s going to stay in control as long for as she can.

Slowly, Lexa moves her hands from where they were settled at Clarke’s ass, and traces her palm along the outsides of the blonde’s thighs, stopping at her knees. Then, lifting first one, and then the, she settles Clarke’s long, muscled legs to rest over her shoulders.

“That’s more like it,” she whispers before returning her hands to the blonde’s ass and gently pulling Clarke just a little closer, until the angle’s just right.

Clarke’s hands tangle in her braids, tugging and pulling, trying to direct the brunette as one would a horse, but Lexa just smiles and ignores Clarke’s frustration.  

She means to drive the Sky Commander wild before they’re through.

Barely, barely, Lexa brings her fingers up to rake through Clarke’s light, wiry hair as her mouth still hovers over the woman’s clit, still but for a random lick or kiss or suck when the mood strikes.

She takes her time, Lexa does. Tracing each lip with her hands, massaging at the tense muscles in Clarke’s thighs, tracing her wet, slick folds with her long, strong fingers. She runs one in wide, loose circles at the base of Clarke’s budding clit, pleased at the way the blonde’s heels knock against her spine in response.

With the other hand, she explores more. Dips just the hint of a fingertip into the swollen, sodden heat at Clarke’s entrance, and then gently plays at the sensitive flesh under, drawing down, down, until, extending her thumb, she brushes just the slightest against the puckered ring of muscle below. The response she gets is a breathless moan, and another attempt from Clarke to force more contact between them as she rolls her hips down into the touch.

She settles her palm over hard ridge of Clarke’s hip, and then pinches gently at the base of the blonde’s clit as she lowers her mouth to take its tip in-between her lips, and suckles, hard.

It’s just enough to have Clarke desperate, but not enough to make her come, and Lexa knows this, and lets go of the hard, aching nub with a loud “pop” as Clarke’s hips thrust aimlessly, steadying her with the warm palm at her hipbone.

Before Clarke can register the loss of Lexa’s fingers on the rigid shaft of her clit, the Grounder is slipping one inside of her hot, wet sex.

And then, just as quick, Lexa pulls out, glistening and dripping with the other woman’s arousal.

“You’re soaking,” she says, and licks at the wetness covering her finger, “and you taste of the earth.”

But Clarke doesn’t hear her, doesn’t process the words.

She just says Lexa’s name, a low moan that seems to echo inside the Grounder’s head. It’s a request, it’s a demand, and Lexa is almost ready to give in.

She enters Clarke again, still just one finger, and thrusts lazily, shallowly, in an off-beat counterpoint to the rhythm she’s tapping out with her tongue against the blonde’s clit.  It’s irregular and it’s just short of enough and no matter how desperately Clarke tries to grind against her face, how frantically she thrusts, trying to sink down onto Lexa’s hand, seeking the fulfillment that she’s been so-far denied, Lexa is in control, and Lexa is not ready to let Clarke go, not ready to set Clarke free.

And when she is, when Lexa decides that she’s ready to make Clarke come, to give Clarke the resolution the blonde woman wants so badly, she does it with the same agonizing slowness that she’s been taunting the other woman with all morning.

First another finger, a quick flurry of her tongue and then slow, irregular thrusts again, the pace set to some dance that only exists on the inside of Lexa’s head.

And then another, and long, heavy licks as she begins to thrust deeper. Slow, still, but to the second knuckle, the third.

There’s a low, breathless keening coming from her throne, and Lexa loses her concentration for a moment as she struggles to bring her body under control, but then, once she does, she adds the final finger.

Clarke gasps at the fullness, at the way Lexa fills her so well.

And then Lexa lets herself go. Her tongue is a blur over Clarke’s sensitive clit, and she thrusts hard and deep into the blonde, the feel of Clarke’s hot, strong, slick muscles gripping her, caressing her fingers, surrounding them, almost overwhelming itself.

She can feel the blonde’s warm arousal over her face, the wet sheen over her cheeks.

She can feel the quivering of Clarke’s thighs around her head, over her shoulder, and the hard press of her heels as the Sky commander struggles to find some purchase, something solid to ground her.

In an instant, she thrusts deep once, twice more, and then shallow again, curling her fingers and thrusting hard against the rough patch of skin just inside Clarke’s sex.

She can taste Clarke’s orgasm a second before she feels the strong quakes, the forceful contractions preceded just the slightest by a splash of clear fluid against her chin, and then another.. Clarke’s sweet-smelling cum pools in her palm as she rubs hard against the ridged skin of the blonde’s most sensitive spot, coaxing every sensation, every pleasure she can out of this moment.

Lexa only stops when Clarke begins to push her away, too sensitive for any more.

Slowly, slowly she withdraws her hand, careful not to spill a drop of Clarke’s gift to her. Instead, she sits back on her legs, and cleans herself off, eyes never leaving her lover’s face.

She can see so much there, so many things dancing over the face of the woman who’s climbed her throne, who’s been so thoroughly taken upon it. Clarke looks down on her from her perch, eyes glazed and lazy, and Lexa understands, maybe for the first time, what her people feel for her. How her people see her up in that magnificent throne.

She would do anything for Clarke.

Love her, die for her. Anything.

~

It’s Raheem who tells her where to find Clarke.

Her own tent, of all places.

She’d been wounded, the apprentice informs her, and too stubborn to admit it until Abby dragged her away from the battlefield. They were there now while the doctor tended to her daughter’s injuries.

Her concern must be evident, or perhaps they haven’t been as discreet as they thought, because before he moves on with his stack of bandages, he touches her arm and tells her that the Sky Commander will be fine.

She needs to see for herself.

Lexa needs to see with her own eyes that Clarke is well, needs to feel the pulse of blood and the heat of flesh with her own hands before she’ll believe that everything will be fine.

Her trek back to the Trikru camp is quick, and she avoids as many people as she can. But still, her mind weaves what ifs and wonders.

She thinks back to her earliest memories of Clarke, of the woman who fell from the sky.

Love is weakness, she’d said, more for herself than the blonde. A reminder of what can happen when she forgets to protect her heart. A reminder of her oath to never risk her heart again.

But Clarke had never believed her. No, the blonde had seen through her from the very beginning.

You’re weak for hiding them, she’d accused. Not “for not having them.” Not “for not knowing what it feels like to love.”

For hiding them.

Already, Clarke had known her better and more intimately than any other.

Even Costia.

And she’d been right.

Having feelings isn’t weakness. Loving isn’t weakness.

Letting yourself believe you don’t need them.

Letting yourself believe that you’re weaker for wanting them them.

That’s weakness.

That’s what would ruin you in the end.

It’s Clarke who taught her that, who made her realize how wrong she’d been.

It’s Clarke who made her realize how much she needed love, to give it and to receive it.

It’s Clarke, Lexa thinks, as she spies the Trigedakru standard waving proudly above the fire pits, who she loves.

It didn’t take a war for her to realize that, no.

Just to give her the courage to say it.

~

Clarke sits back in the throne, struggling to get her breathing under control and watching as Lexa wipes at the wetness on her face.

She laughs, and the brunette pauses, her expression puzzled.

“Your paint,” Clarke points out, “it’s a bit … smudged.” She reaches for the abandoned mirror and holds it out to the brunette.

It’s true, her warpaint is mussed all over her face, and even she, the Heda of the 12 Clans, cannot stifle the laugh that bubbles up when she sees her reflection.

Truly, she’ll have to start over, wash everything off and begin again.

Lexa sighs and stands to retrieve the basin of water on the other side of the room, bringing a cloth and Clarke’s pants with her when she returns.

“Here,” she says, and tosses a wet cloth at the woman on her throne.

Now it’s the other woman’s turn to look confused. But Lexa just points at the blonde’s thighs and continues to clean herself.  She knows Clarke’s seen it when she hears the loud bark of laughter.

“You know what,” Clarke says, and Lexa hears her rise, “I’m going to leave it. It will be my warpaint, and give me strength during battle.”

Clarke teases, but Lexa knows the other woman is aware of the ritual, the importance of a warrior’s paint. It’s why so few of the Sky people wear it into battle. It has meaning, it’s a symbol of those you fight for, those who watch over you and protect you from harm.

The persistent ache in her chest seems to grow, and Lexa knows what she has to do to make it go away, but she can’t. She can’t.

She can’t say the words–not to Clarke, not out loud, not even silently, to herself, in her own mind.

Saying them makes it real, makes what she feels real, and she can’t risk it.

She can’t risk losing Clarke.

So Lexa ignores the ache, buries it down again, deep inside, and continues to paint her face.

She can’t stop the waver in her voice when she responds, though, or the tremble of her fingers against her cheek as she thinks about Clarke heading into battle wearing her markings.

From outside a horn blows, and the call to battle has been given. Clarke yanks up her pants and reassembles her armor, and then crosses the room in bold, even strides, pulling Lexa to her for a hard, bruising kiss.

“May we meet again,” she whispers against Lexa’s lips.

And then she’s gone.

~

Lexa throws back the flap of her tent with force, eyes desperately searching out Clarke.

But instead, there’s only Abby, wielding a pair of scissors with a fierce look on her face.  After a moment, after the initial adrenaline fades, the doctor puts the scissors down and stands, and then, at last, she sees Clarke, laying on the bed beyond.

There’s a curious look on Clarke’s mother’s face as the woman congratulates her on the victory, and not even Lexa can mask the look of surprise when she hears Abby call her “Heda.” But Lexa can focus on little without knowing of how Clarke fares, and she’s more than relieved when the doctor lets her go and see for herself that Clarke is alive and well.

She’s asleep, deeply, and aided by spirits, if the bottle sitting on the table by the bed is any indication. Clarke doesn’t move as Lexa settles herself next to her on the bed, as she leans in to kiss the smooth skin of the blonde’s forehead.

Finally, the toll of the day sets in, and Lexa doesn’t argue as Abby returns with more bandages and needles and thread. She takes a swig from the bottle herself, and lets the doctor wipe away the blood and dirt and paint from her face, and doesn’t even flinch when the other woman begins to sew up the few cuts that are too deep to heal on their own.

The strength of the spirit, the warmth of the body next to her, the gentle lullaby that the doctor hums as she heals, they work together and weave a spell of sleep that slowly, slowly pulls Lexa under, into the darkness of dreams.

The last thing she remembers, after the feel of someone pulling off her boots, her pants, pulling the bottle out of her hands?

After the warm feeling of someone tucking a blanket carefully around her, combing strands of hair out of her eyes?

The last thing she remembers before she slips fully into sleep’s tender hold, into the new era of peace and prosperity, is the sound of her own voice, whispering “I love you” into the dark, quiet night.

She’s not afraid anymore.

She has nothing to fear.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "She" by Elvis Costello


End file.
